wrestling with a pinch of other

Main menu

Post navigation

The Weekly Impact Review

The following is a review of the latest episode of TNA Impact. It was written by TNA Correspondent Joseph Holberry (check out the bio here) Enjoy reading. Follow, comment and like! Also check out the rest of Joe’s work here.

Former UFC star Rampage Jackson – Source: Impact Wrestling

TNA IMPACT 11/7/2013

Impact starts with a backstage segment, the cameras catching up with bully ray backstage. He talks about Brooke Hogan’s real life engagement, and saying that she can only move on, when he says so. I’m not sure if I like the blurring of real life/fiction, but we’ll see where it goes.

Cut to the arena, Aces & Eights making their entrance through the crowd. I love how Bully talks to Taz every time he walks by, it makes sense! He tells Taz that they should bury Mike in the desert, which is fitting cos tonight’s show is in Las Vegas.

Bully grabs the mic and they all climb into the ring. He warns X Division Champion Chris Sabin to not bother cashing in his title for a World Title shot, because he’ll lose both his title and the match. He goes on to say Aces are going to vote in their new Vice President later tonight, which no-one really knows what to think of, because we don’t know what that entails. As he’s speaking, he’s interrupted by the Main Event Mafia (Sting, Kurt Angle, Magnus and Samoa Joe). Angle comes out wearing THE WORST/BEST sunglasses I’ve ever seen (they have the American flag on them), he says next week they’re gonna take out each member of Aces next week, and they have another member to introduce tonight.

Tonight is a Jokers Wild tournament, with the Bound For Glory entrants being put randomly into tag teams, and the winning teams going into a gauntlet match, with the winner getting 25 points. Kind of long winded really.

Borash picks the teams from a Bingo ball spinning thing.

JEFF HARDY & JOSEPH PARK VS AJ STYLES & SAMOA JOE

AJ and Park start the match, with AJ quickly getting the upper hand with his new more vicious attitude and offence. A scared looking Park tags in Hardy, who quickly takes it to AJ with a sit out reverse vertical suplex. Samoa Joe gets tagged in and attacks Hardy. I’m always impressed with Joe, and how he continues to be over with the crowd even though TNA have never really had 100% faith in him. After a pretty funny spot with Hardy in AJ’s calf killer and Park not knowing whether to break it up or not, Joe gets tagged in and chokes Park for the win. Joe and AJ stare each other down as the ref holds up their hands, hinting at a lack of trust (they’ll probably fight each other later).

JAY BRADLEY & HERNANDEZ VS MR. ANDERSON & MAGNUS

First off, Bradley looks pissed off when Hernandez is announced as his partner…why would anyone dislike that? Interesting pairing up a member of each MEM and Aces too, Anderson actually tried to get a handshake, but Magnus refused. Because of this, Anderson wouldn’t tag in, or get involved at all. Hernandez showing his tag team experience by being in the right place for blind tags etc. After a miscommunication, Bradley accidentally trips Hernandez who gets rolled up by Magnus. Anderson immediately gets to the top rope and looks ecstatic about the win, even though he didn’t do anything at all.

Backstage Segment – Austin Aries and Bobby Roode are backstage, discussing their history with the BFG series. Bad Influence interrupt them and say that the odds are in their favour, and they will see them in the last match.

Borash calls out the first name, Christopher Daniels. As he’s expecting the next choice to be his partner Kazarian, he dances on the stage until Borash announces Austin Aries. Even with the partners switched, every time these four have had a match it’s been amazing, so this should be no different. As Borash announces Kaz, Daniels looks at him with the look of almost a proud dad watching his son playing football for the first time, I love their attention to detail.

Daniels and Kaz hint at fighting each other, until laughing and posing for the crowd. Daniels tags in Aries and they go at it. Daniels tags himself in to give Kaz a rest and tells him to tag in Roode. After Roode gets the upper hand on Daniels, he runs and tags in Aries and says ‘you’ve fought him before, go get him!’. Even with comedy stuff going on, I don’t think these four men are capable of putting on a bad match. Beautiful chain of moves with Daniels and Aries blind tagging between every other move, with Daniels looking worried for Kaz every time he got hit. Eventually Kaz rolls up DANIELS and gets the win. Aries looks distraught but Daniels takes it on the chin and congratulates his friends. For a second I thought they were hinting at splitting up Bad Influence, thank god it wasn’t.

Backstage Segment – Hulk Hogan tells Brooke she needs to take care of business, ALL of it.

Backstage Segment – Bully Ray and Friends are backstage voting on who gets the VP spot. After going 3 to 3, Knux votes for Anderson and he’s in. Knux tells DOC its not about him, it’s about the club. That might have been the first time I’ve heard him speak, including when he was in WWE.

LADDER MATCH – GAIL KIM VS TARYN TERRELL

This match is for the number one contendership for the Knockouts Title, so Champion Mickie James comes to ringside. Gail and Taryn literally run at each other to start the match, brawling through the ropes and on the ramp. From their last match, a lot of people have high hopes for this match, but I’m not sure they can top what they did. Taz wonders where they get the ladders from…I don’t think he cares any more, he just says what he thinks, which I prefer over the WWE forced-sounding commentary. As we come back from commercial, both knockouts are on top of the ladder, fall off and get hung up on the top rope. Gail recovers first and sets it back up, and runs underneath it only to turn around when Taryn pushes it into her face.

There’s definitely something about seeing women getting hit with weapons, it’s so much harsher. Gail figure-fours Taryn with her legs inside the ladder, and heads to the top. After a super impressive spot where Taryn is literally dangling Gail by her neck and choking her, she drop’s an unconscious Gail to the ground reaches for the slip. Gail slowly recovers, so Taryn crossbodies her from the top…insane. The match ends with Taryn going for a dragon sleeper type move, which Gail reverses by TYING TARYN’S HAIR TO THE ROPES and escaping, quickly getting up the ladder and grabbing the contract. Really innovative stuff by both women, really impressive.

BFG GAUNTLET MATCH

Apparently a man will enter every two minutes, how that order is decided, I don’t know, it hasn’t been mentioned. AJ comes out first, and is followed by Magnus. Some really nice chain wrestling and basic holds, with Magnus completely holding his own over his much more experienced opponent. The crowd start chanting boring (idiots) until AJ hits a stiff back body suplex and a backflip dropkick as the clock starts the ten count. Kazarian runs to the ring and starts attacking both men. They do the standard kick-punch offence like in every battle royal like situation until Samoa Joe Heads to the ring. He quickly teams with Magnus, hitting their chain double team moves on Kaz, which weakens him enough to be eliminated by AJ. Back from commercial Anderson is in the ring, and we’re already counting down from ten, which of course means Bobby Roode is next. Anderson eliminates AJ with a clothesline, only to be clotheslined out by Joe, who follows him and eliminates himself.

We are down to Magnus and Roode, which really shows how much faith they have in Magnus. Roode hits a spinebuster and gets a two count (apparently pins are being counted now as Earl Hebner has appeared out of nowhere). The two men trade submissions, Magnus misses a top rope elbow, Roode attempts a fisherman suplex, but can’t quite get it. He rolls up Magnus, who reverses it into a pin of his own, and gets the 3 count and 25 BFG points. Hebner paused between the 2 and 3, just making me hate him more.

Hulk Hogan comes to the ring to a huge reaction, as always. He thanks the fans, and addresses the X Division Title situation. Chris Sabin comes out to the ring, talks about coming back from Injuries, his doubts and his hopes and dreams etc. He says all that’s left is to hand over his title and confirm his shot at the world title. Before he can do that, he’s interupted by Bully Ray. He wants to speak to his wife, Brooke, and to tell Sabin that he needs to reconsider and not sacrifice his belt. I’ve got to say, Sabin looks absolutely dwarved by both Bully and Hulk (doesn’t matter to me like, size isn’t that important). Sabin finally fires back saying that he pinned Bully in the match that split up Team 3D and he’s the only person in TNA to kick out of the 3D. Really good points, that they should have brought up sooner. Sabin hands over his belt, and Bully says that means he’s fighting him and his family, the Aces & 8’s. As the Aces head to the ring, Sting comes out and says they will be there to make sure its 1 on 1, and introduce their newest member…Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson! Bully acts terrified, and Impact ends with a shot of the MEM standing tall on the stage.

Notes – Overall, a really good show. The BFG is sometimes a bit too complicated, and the casual viewer won’t know whats happening. Every match tonight was at least decent, with the best match going to the Knockouts. Amazing how much better the knockouts are than the Divas, not that they don’t have the potential to do high quality stuff, they don’t get the opportunity/time. I need to see what the plan is with Rampage before I comment on that really. If its a Mike Tyson joining DX type thing, then that would be cool, have him throwing some punches and that, I’d be into it. Also, there was no mention of Suicide/Manik after he was hospitalised last week, surely that would put over Aces a bit more.

As always you can contact me with any thoughts, or even if you just want to chat about wrestling at @jrholberry on twitter.